Google spent $1.1 billion in 7 years developing self-driving tech
Now you know how serious this company is on bring fully autonomous vehicles through its self-driving tech company to everyone.
A financial analyst at Waymo has unintentionally revealed how much Google spent on developing the software and hardware for its self-driving car effort.According to the financial analyst Shawn Bananzadeh, who gave his deposition in the ongoing Waymo lawsuit against ride-sharing giant Uber for stealing its intellectual property and trade secrets for its own effort, Google spent a whooping $1.1 billion on the software and hardware powering its autonomous car between 2009(when the program started) and at the end of 2015.
That’s not all. He also said the $1.1 billion was just a cost estimate and that it did not include other expenses incurred while running the self-driving car project for 7 years, which has now become a standalone self-driving car development company called Waymo — which stands for a new way forward in mobility.
You may say in Google’s eyes that’s a derisory amount but we on the outside know it is a huge investment, considering it has not been able to sell it to automakers. Can they recoup the money spent? Well, that remains to be seen.
